AFGHANISTAN

Since Afghanistan now grows the opium poppies that provide more than 90% of the world’s opium, the raw material for the production of heroin, it’s not surprising that drug-trade news and war news intersect from time to time. More surprising is how seldom poppy growing and the drug trade are portrayed as anything but ancillary to our Afghan War. Fortunately, TomDispatch regular Alfred McCoy has been focused on the drug trade -- and the American role in fostering it -- in Southeast, Central, and South Asia for a long time.

If the U.S. public looked long and hard into a mirror reflecting the civilian atrocities that have occurred in Afghanistan, over the past ten months, we would see ourselves as people who have collaborated with and paid for war crimes committed against innocent civilians who meant us no harm.

How pathetic a scene was this: The president of the United States, commander- in-chief of the mightiest war machine the world has ever known, sneaking into one of the poorest countries in the world and meeting with the corrupt leader of that country, where he has committed 100,000 troops to battle, to beg with that corrupt leader to “clean up” his corrupt and profoundly inept government.

The recent dueling positions of long time friends and all time allies Israel and America over the construction of 1,600 new apartments in east Jerusalem has obviously hit the headlines worldwide. This has lead to a few high dramatic enactments including the Vice President Joe Biden being reported to be ‘embarrassed;’ Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton calling the Israeli land policy ‘provocative’ and termed it as not in Israel’s long-term interests and undermined U.S. credibility as a neutral mediator. At this juncture it is really worthwhile to examine the claims of America as the neutral broker in the long standing Israeli Palestine conflict.

Still, the most jarring part of the Obama fly-in to Bagram was the part of the base he (apparently) didn't visit: the secret prison we've been running there for years. It's Gitmo on steroids.

The Obama some of us want to believe still exists would have at least acknowledged the unpleasant truth. The Obama who does exist just gave the troops a boilerplate pep talk, "never quit" and all, and flew into the dawn.

Webmaster's Commentary:

Memo to Harry Shearer: "The Obama some of us want to believe still exists..." never existed in the first place.

The man has broken every campaign promise he made to the American people and the world, and moved from "hope and change", domestically and internationally, to "shock and awe" faster than the speed of light.

He is a President of the corporations, by the corporations, and for the corporations, backed by the best Congress that money can buy - anybody's money.

And to think for a millisecond that he would put an end to the torture Bush institutionalized during his regime as president?!?

Simply laughable; torture is now as American value as mother and apple pie.

American and NATO troops firing from passing convoys and military checkpoints have killed 30 Afghans and wounded 80 others since last summer, but in no instance did the victims prove to be a danger to troops, according to military officials in Kabul.

“We have shot an amazing number of people, but to my knowledge, none has ever proven to be a threat,” said Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, who became the senior American and NATO commander in Afghanistan last year.

Mr Obama urged President Hamid Karzai to tackle the widespread corruption in his government and invited the Afghan leader to visit Washington on May 12.

Air Force One landed in Bagram airfield north of the Afghan capital after dark before a helicopter designated Marine One too him to Mr Karzai's palace in Kabul. White House advisers said that Mr Karzai had known of the visit since Thursday and had been invited to talk in Washington in May.

Mr Obama, whom aides had said was at Camp David when in fact he was making the nearly 13-hour flight, was due to be briefed by Gen Stanley McChrystal and to deliver a speech to American troops.

Obama just finished a speech live from Afghanistan, talking about blah blah blah 9-11 blah blah blah terror blah blah blah 9-11 to thunderous applause, which is weird because the speech was live and looking at the clock, they woke those poor soldiers up in the middle of the night to sit in that audience and listen to the boss pretend to explain why they have to go on getting blown into bloody bits.

I turn on the television and look at the talking heads telling us what to think, what to wear, what to believe and what to say and and I see the pedicures, manicures, 200 dollar hair cuts, 1000 dollar suits, protected by body guards all the while trying to CONvince us they are like we are and I just want to choke the living shit out of the likes of Sean Hannity, Bill O'rielly, Glen Beck, Rush Limbaugh on and on to what must be infinity and it really pisses me off, but I don't know.. I Must be Weird.

A recent report in Stars and Stripes reveals the nature of the US military operation in Haiti. Combat units from Iraq and Afghanistan have been deployed in Haiti under the banner of a humanitarian operation. Conversely, Haiti is also being used as a military training ground for forces without in-theater combat experience.

According to the Stars and Stripes report (March 14, 2010): "Marines deployed to Haiti to render emergency aid following January’s devastating earthquake are already training for the fight in Afghanistan."

The proposal, which would have to be approved by a new British government, is facing stiff resistance. Whitehall officials fear that a pull-out from Helmand, where nearly 250 British troops have been killed since 2006, would be portrayed as an admission of defeat.

Under the plans, British forces would hand over their remaining bases in Helmand to the US Marines as early as this year.

Such a move could bring back unhappy memories of the 2007 withdrawal from Basra in southern Iraq, which provoked jibes about British forces being bailed out by the Americans.

One can only assume that the regular editors of the New York Times were all out at a party, or left early for a weekend in the Hamptons, or something -- but somehow, the paper published a front webpage story that stated -- without the usual thousand excuses and extenuations -- that American troops are routinely slaughtering Afghan civilians at checkpoints. What's more, the story unequivocally ties the civilian killings to the "surge" ordered by the noble Nobel Peace laureate, Barack Obama.

NATO has rejected an appeal made by Russia for eradication of opium fields in Afghanistan, arguing that the sole source of income in the region cannot be removed.

Addressing a meeting of the NATO-Russia Council on Wednesday, head of Russia's Federal Drug Control Agency (FSKN) Victor Ivanov said "Afghan opiates led to the death of 1 million people by overdose in the last 10 years, and that is United Nations data. Is that not a threat to world peace and security?"

US-led forces added the murders of pregnant women to the recent murders of school children in Afghanistan. US military officials were forced to admit they lied in their report that Afghan “bad guys” murdered five civilians when Timesonline reporter Jerome Starkey went to the scene and documented that all evidence and witness testimony was that US-led forces murdered innocent civilians in a night raid. Unanimous testimony included Afghan government officials, police chiefs and survivors of the attack. The United Nations and New York Times investigated and corroborated Mr. Starkey’s reporting.

According to journalist Jerome Starkey, writing for The Times UK, at first no one claimed responsibility for the killings. A US official in Kabul refused to identify the force involved, citing “utmost national and strategic security interests”.

A subsequent Times investigation revealed that the gunmen were U.S. military and Afghan police conducting a raid directed at suspected Taliban insurgents. More than a dozen survivors, officials, police chiefs and a religious leader interviewed at and around the scene of the attack maintain that the perpetrators were U.S. and Afghan gunmen.

Afghan opiates led to the death of 1 million people by overdose in the last 10 years, and that is United Nations data. Is that not a threat to world peace and security?' Ivanov asked journalists after the meeting.

Webmaster's Commentary:

OF course, the indelicate question will not be put to NATO leadership, which is: who is really profiting from the sale of these drugs?!?

With the Karzai government entering into face-to-face peace talks with the insurgent faction Hezb-e Islami earlier this week, the United States seems to be going out of its way to downplay the chance of any diplomatic resolution of the ongoing war.

Secretary of Defense Robert Gates warned that the timing for peace talks was all wrong, because the Taliban leaders aren’t convinced that they’re going to lose the war.

Webmaster's Commentary:

Memo to US Secretary of Defense Robert Gates: when, sir, will you consider the timing "right" for reconciliation talks to proceed?!?

How many more of our brave young men and women in uniform will need to continue to fight, get killed, or maimed for life for a war where the outcomes are only to produce private profit for corporations?!?

And that begs the question: why is the the US in Afghanistan in the first place?

There are two outcomes, one of which has already been accomplished. The other is still illusive.

The first outcome, about which we can well say, "mission accomplished", is the control of the drug trade, from which so many profit so handsomely.

The second outcome had to do with "pacifying" Afghans to the point where the pipelines could be installed with which to control Eurasian oil. That, outcome, nearly 9 years on in Afghanistan, appears as elusive as ever.

Gate's position here makes utterly no sense whatsoever, when the only tangible, possible way to stop the violence is for the US to invest in this reconciliation, not try to stop it.

Wouldn't that make for greater security, the kind of security which would make possible the installation of those pipelines?!?

Curbing the Taliban's multimillion dollar opium poppy business was a major goal of a military operation to seize this former insurgent stronghold. With the town in NATO hands, the Marines face a conundrum: If they destroy the crops and curb the trade, they lose the support of the population — a problem for which they have no easy solution.

Webmaster's Commentary:

So now that the US/NATO forces control Marjah, what do they also control?!?

They now control the drug trade, which includes where the drugs wind up.

As reported on 12 March, 20910 in

http://www.realclearworld.com/news/ap/international/2010/Mar

"Russia's envoy to NATO has sharply criticized the alliance's battle with drug trafficking in Afghanistan, saying it has led to a surge in heroin smuggling that is endangering Russia's national security."

"Russia "is losing 30,000 lives a year to the Afghan drug trade, and a million people are addicts," Rogozin said. "This is an undeclared war against our country."

Coincidence?!? I think not. The introduction of cheap, illegal drugs to a country is one way of destabilizing a country without firing a shot.

NATO Wednesday rejected Russian calls for it to eradicate opium poppy fields in Afghanistan, saying the best way for Moscow to help control the drug would be to give more assistance against the insurgency.

Will these campaigns in Marja, Kandahar and Kunduz subdue the Taliban and bring them to the negotiating table, the newly professed strategy of the occupiers? It should not be forgotten that Karzai himself was a member of the Taliban government from 1995-98, before Unical hired him as an insider to try to clinch an oil pipeline deal. His effortless transition to US protege suggests he was probably already on the US payroll, along with his less reputable colleague Osama bin Laden. Though Karzai sees negotiations as the only way out, comments by other ex-Taliban officials who have cast their lot with the occupiers, however reluctantly, are not encouraging.

The US military says it is using a new approach to fight drug production in Afghanistan, but Julian Mercille, lecturer at University College, Dublin, believes both they and NATO have in fact been supporting the industry.

“The bulk of the income from drugs is captured by other players like traffickers and the police and people in the government. So the problem is that the US and NATO have empowered a lot of people who are involved in drugs in government and the police forces,” says Mercille. “That is one reason why the US and NATO have directly caused the drastic increases in drug production in Afghanistan.”

Webmaster's Commentary:

Control of the drug trade means controlling where the drugs ultimately wind up, like the cheap heroin to which many young Russian people have become addicted.

The sacrifice and victory of the “Greatest Generation” was codified in the US-created treaty of the UN Charter: invading other nations, Wars of Aggression, would be unlawful.

The spirit and letter of these strict limits to lawful war are clear: war is only allowed if, and only if, it is in self-defense from an armed attack from a nation’s government and/or authorized by the UN Security Council (UNSC). Self-defense from individual attacks of terror is unaffected by the UN Charter.

Hamid Karzai has held face-to-face talks with active insurgents representing one of the most violent rebel leaders operating in Afghanistan, the Afghan president's office said today.

According to the organisation's spokesman Haroun Zarghoun, the delegates presented a 15-point plan, including a call for foreign troops to withdraw from Afghanistan within six months, starting in July. Six months after that an interim government would be appointed and preparations made for fresh elections.

Webmaster's Commentary:

The US and NATO will not allow this to happen, period, end of discussion.

The pipelines with which to control Eurasian oil have not yet been installed, and this was one of the primary outcomes desired by the US from the moment of the US and NATO invasion of Afghanistan.

All reasons to go to war with Iraq were lies, and known to be lies at the time they were told. We know this because the evidence is disclosed by our own government and proves beyond doubt that the reasons were known lies. If you don’t already know this as factual and independently verifiable, read here before proceeding. That link will also prove beyond doubt that war with Iraq was unlawful.

The effort to win over Afghans on former Taliban turf in Marja has put American and NATO commanders in the unusual position of arguing against opium eradication, pitting them against some Afghan officials who are pushing to destroy the harvest.

From Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal on down, the military’s position is clear: “U.S. forces no longer eradicate,” as one NATO official put it. Opium is the main livelihood of 60 to 70 percent of the farmers in Marja, which was seized from Taliban rebels in a major offensive last month. American Marines occupying the area are under orders to leave the farmers’ fields alone.

Webmaster's Commentary:

Translation: American and NATO commanders have not been put"... in the unusual position of arguing against opium eradication."
The control and distribution of Afghan drugs, from which so many profit so handsomely, was one of the expected outcomes of the invasion and occupation of Afghanistan.

And please note that before the US/NATO invasion and occupation, the Taliban had managed to almost completely eradicate opium poppy production.

Do you believe that it was merely coincidence that after the US and NATO invaded Afghanistan, opium production soared?!?

As reported in:

http://hubpages.com/hub/Afghanistan-Opium

"The spread of opium has not been curtailed since the United States invaded Afghanistan. In fact, the spread of opium, which is typically processed into heroin, has actually increased since the United States invaded Afghanistan. “In 2004, according to the United Nations, opium poppy cultivation in Afghanistan rose by two-thirds, climbing to 320,000 acres and producing a yield of 4,200 metric tons (a metric ton equals 2,205 pounds)” (Williams, 2005, p. 58)"

This exponential growth can hardly be attributed to "coincidence".

And when the drug trade is controlled, where the drugs wind up is also controlled.

In fact, that part of the invasion and occupation of Afghanistan is working so magnificently well that, as reported on 12 March 2010 in:
http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/afghanistan/2010-03-12-russia-us-nato_N.htm

"Russia's envoy to NATO has sharply criticized the alliance's shift away from fighting drug trafficking in Afghanistan, saying the resulting surge in heroin smuggling is endangering Russia's national security."

"(Russia) is losing 30,000 lives a year to the Afghan drug trade, and a million people are addicts," Rogozin said. "This is an undeclared war against our country."

If you are an American -- or indeed, any denizen of "Western Civilization" whose security and values are supposedly being "defended" on the far-flung fields of the Terror War -- then take a good, long look at what is being done in your name, with your money.

"Covert troops who killed two pregnant women and a teenage girl in eastern Afghanistan went on to inflict "cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment" on the survivors of a botched night raid, a report by the UN said.

The family of the victims in Paktiya province have accused Nato of trying to cover up the atrocity after an investigation by The Times revealed that two men, who were also killed, were not the intended targets of the raid. One was a police commander and his brother was a district-attorney."

Webmaster's Commentary:

The people of Afghanistan do not "hate us because we are free"; they hate us because we are killing their wives, bothers, sons, daughters, and sisters, all in pursuit of the following US geopolitical objectives.

1. To install the pipelines with which to control Eurasian oil (haven't done very well with that bit, eight years on).

2. To control the drug trade, from which so many profit so handsomely. (On this objective, one can well say, "mission accomplished". In fact, this has been going so well that Russia has claimed that the US and NATO are waging an undeclared war against it by not doing anything to prevent cheap heroin from reaching Russia, as reported here:
http://www.prisonplanet.com/nato-waging-undeclared-war-on-russia-moscow.html

So, you have two parallel outcomes - both for profit - which are the real reasons for the invasion and occupation of Afghanistan.

NATO and the US are murdering innocent people here with impunity; then when a raid goes bad, attempting to cover up the damage, then lie about it.

This war is immoral and illegal (to say nothing of bankrupting this nation), and will ultimately have its "Saigon moment" when the US will have to retreat, declare victory, and leave, just as did the old Soviet Union.

We also know that there will be no economic recovery here at home as long as we're spending $100 billion a year on another war that isn't making us any safer - the war in Afghanistan.

That's why we're asking you to report the Afghanistan War as an example of waste, fraud and abuse on the White House's official economic recovery website, Recovery.gov, today. Simply scroll down to the field marked "What" and paste this message into the text box:

"I'd like to report the waste of billions of dollars of our national wealth in Afghanistan on a war that doesn't make us safer. It's fraud to portray this as a war that increases our security, and it's abusive of U.S. troops and local civilians to drag out this war any longer. End the war so we can have real economic recovery."

The London Times reported on March 13 that American special forces, accompanied by Afghan police, entered a housing compound near Gardez, in Paktia province on February 12. They killed a local police commander named Daoud, his brother and three women, two of whom were pregnant. His 15-year-old son was also shot.

Webmaster's Commentary:

The Afghan people do not "hate us because we are free"; they hate us because we are killing their families and friends for the private profit to be obtained after they have been "pacified" enough to enable the installation of pipelines with which to control Eurasian oil, and establish control over the drug trade, an outcome which has already been achieved.

Yesterday top commander General Stanley McChrystal revealed that the invasion of Kandahar Province, the centerpiece of this year’s offensives in Afghanistan, has already begun. But this year’s offensives will not end there, according to NATO’s ISAF Chief of Staff General Bruno Kasdorf.

Gen. Kasdorf says that the alliance is also planning a military offensive against northern Afghanistan, centered around the Kunduz Province. The offensive is scheduled to begin sometime later this year.

Webmaster's Commentary:

I am waiting for the words "body count" to again creep into the corporate media's characterization of these attacks, as happened during the Viet Nam War, to lull the American people into thinking that the US and NATO are actually "winning" here.

The war is militarily unwinnable; we never did, nor do we have now, the troop strength to win this militarily.

What the US and NATO should do is declare victory, go home, then negotiate with whatever government is left standing about the installation of the pipelines with which to control Eurasian oil.

Russia and China have been fighting their energy wars with deals, not guns, and have been very successful in their endeavors.

The second desired outcome, the control of the drugs from which so many profit so handsomely, has already been accomplished.

In fact, it has been accomplished to the degree that Russian officials are opening complaining that NATO has created an "undeclared war" against it because of the cheap heroin flooding the drug market place, most of it coming from Afghanistan.

None of the reasons the US and NATO are in Afghanistan have to do with any existential threat from the Afghan people against the US or NATO: they have everything to do with private profit, but nothing to do with actual geopolitical security.

Unfortunately, no US congressman, State Department or White house official will ever have the "male attributes" to tell families or friends of those who have died or been maimed for life in this military misadventure what the price of their sacrifice was actually intended to achieve.

Taliban fighters more than doubled the number of homemade bombs they used against U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan last year. Military officials say low-tech bombs have stymied a $17 billion U.S. counteroffensive.

Webmaster's Commentary:

We used to see that in Vietnam where a $50 mortar filled with old tin cans could confuse up a $4 million terrain-following radar and crash a $30 million aircraft!

Taliban fighters more than doubled the number of homemade bombs they used against U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan last year, relying on explosives that are often far more primitive than the ones used in Iraq.

The embrace of a low-tech approach by Taliban-trained bombmakers -- they are building improvised explosive devices, or IEDs, out of fertilizer and diesel fuel -- has stymied a $17 billion U.S. counteroffensive against the devices in Iraq and Afghanistan, military officials say. Electronic scanners or jammers, which were commonly deployed in Iraq, can detect only bombs with metal parts or circuitry.

Webmaster's Commentary:

This war is unwinnable.

The Russians are laughing their heads off at the US and NATO right now, for making the same stupid mistakes as did the old Soviet Union.

More than eight years after the US-led invasion, the inability of the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) to maintain control over Afghanistan’s second largest city demonstrates the continuing crisis confronting the occupation.

Just check out the town of Marjah, largely destroyed over the last few months in order to “save” it from a handful of Taliban fighters. Over 30 civilians died in that American show of force, and the message of those deaths was clear: allow the Taliban to operate in your town, and we’ll kill you--not just your men, but your wives and your children, too.

The question often has been asked, especially during these last few years, if American military troops would indeed fire upon American citizens if so ordered by Washington. The answer? Have no doubt America, because it's already happened.

A long-time US military official used Pentagon funding to establish a private intelligence and assassination network in Afghanistan and Pakistan, according to a report Monday in the New York Times. The network was shut down after the CIA station chief in Kabul objected to a competing military-backed intelligence operation, the newspaper said.

If evidence of treason by American political “leadership” was obvious, do you have the integrity and courage to follow your heart and mind’s most virtuous expression of what you should do about it as an American citizen?

Most congressional action regarding Afghanistan has concerned continued funding for the conflict. Thus, members of Congress have cloaked their support for an increasingly unpopular war in terms of financial support of the troops. But last week’s resolution had nothing to do with funding or defunding the war, but rather dealt directly with the wisdom of an open-ended commitment of U.S. troops (and hundreds of billions of tax dollars) in Afghanistan. Members opposing the resolution had to make their case for the ongoing loss of American lives as well as the huge expenditures required for an intractable conflict.

In my opinion, this was an impossible case to make.

Webmaster's Commentary:

This war is unwinnable, period, end of discussion.

The only people actually "winning" are the drug dealers, and those large corporations providing contract mercenaries, contractors, and supplies for the troops.

I happen to mention this debacle with The Pope because it fits in with a few other alarming events that aren’t on the hilltops with ten foot horns but which are going to be making a lot of noise sooner or later. One of these is the capture of someone reputed to be the Taliban’s #2 guy. Apparently the Afghan government is very angry about this because this Talibani had a promise of safe passage and was engaged in strategic talks; please forgive my linking to a Zionist manufactured news site. It’s what I could find handy and sometimes they tell the truth just to keep the borderline mentalities guessing.

Matthew Hoh, the former senior U.S. civilian representative in Zabul province, Afghanistan, says that civilian deaths in Marjah caused by Operation Moshtarak were unnecessary and that the operation isn't accomplishing anything. Hoh points to the installation of an outsider ex-con as the head official in Marjah as evidence that despite U.S. rhetoric to the contrary, Operation Moshtarak is not empowering local people. Hoh says the local Afghans view the U.S. forces as occupiers, and their presence in large numbers following President Obama's decision to send more troops will cause more people to take up arms against the foreign forces.

In this video Frontline covers the growing insurgency in northern Afghanistan. In the footage you’ll see how the Taliban and their allies in the German controlled sector of the country are increasing their power and influence throughout the Helmand region.

he painful truth is that NATO may be suffering from a terminal illness. Its current mission in Afghanistan, the alliance’s most significant and far-flung muscle-flexing to date, might be its last. Afghanistan has been the graveyard of many an imperial power from the ancient Macedonians to the Soviets. It now seems to be eyeing its next victim.

The February 12 night raid against a house party in Afghanistan’s Paktia Province remains shrouded in mystery, but NATO’s official story appears to be crumbling as even NATO officials concede that the claims made were not strictly true.

NATO’s official statement claimed at the time that the raid on the home led to a “fire fight” against “several insurgents” who were killed, before NATO made a “gruesome discovery” of bound and gagged bodies in a nearby room.

NATO is conceding now that all of the slain people were civilians killed in the raid. NATO communications direct Rear Admiral Greg Smith also admitted that they had no real evidence that the men slain at the home had ever fired a shot against the NATO forces.

My headline is legally accurate, and the side of history you want to be on when America finally recognizes our government and corporate media’s fascism.

The definitions of political terms, relevant laws, and facts are simple; the problem is American’s cognitive dissonance to recognize the “Big Lie” at home rather than in a history book of some other place in some past time.

The efforts of American forces to defeat the Taliban in Afghanistan are being hampered by rampant corruption. Key information about foreign troops is being leaked to insurgents by locals who still support them. And Paula Slier reports, without the trust of the people they cannot work together.

Sixty-five congress members, including 60 Democrats and 5 Republicans, voted to end the occupation of Afghanistan on Wednesday. But 356 congress members, including 189 Democrats and 167 Republicans voted to keep the war going. The vote followed three hours of debate created by Congressman Dennis Kucinich’s introduction of a privileged resolution.

2010 is the last year of the new century and millennium and is the tenth consecutive year of the United States’ war in Afghanistan and in the 15-nation area of responsibility subsumed under Operation Enduring Freedom. In early March American military deaths in the Greater Afghan War theater – Afghanistan, Cuba (Guantanamo Bay), Djibouti, Eritrea, Jordan, Kenya, Kyrgyzstan, the Philippines, Seychelles, Sudan, Tajikistan, Turkey, Uzbekistan and Yemen – surpassed the 1,000 mark.

Iran's president says the US must explain what its troops are doing in Afghanistan, as catching terrorists only requires intelligence work not military deployments.

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad made the comment in a joint press conference with his Afghan counterpart Hamid Karzai in Kabul on Wednesday morning.

The Iranian president was responding to a question about the recent arrest of Jundallah leader Abdolmalek Rigi.

“Rigi is supported by the same people [and] governments, who have ill intentions for the government of Afghanistan and the Iranian nation. Rigi was a terrorist, who along with his associates killed more than 140 people,” said Ahmadinejad.

Taking aim at the U.S., Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Wednesday that it's the United States that is playing a "double game" in Afghanistan, fighting terrorists it once supported.

At a press conference in the Afghan capital, Ahmadinejad was asked to respond to U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates, who earlier in the week accused Tehran of "playing a double game" by trying to have a good relationship with the Afghan government while undermining U.S. and NATO efforts by providing some support to the Taliban.

Tehran has said it supports the Afghan government and denies allegations that it helps the Taliban.

As our air war against terrorists accelerates — with strikes by pilotless drone planes, helicopters, et al. — unintentional civilian deaths and serious injuries mount. A Feb. 22 Wall Street Journal report from Kabul begins: “U.S. Special Operations Forces (hunting down Taliban) ordered an air strike that killed at least 27 civilians, and the soldiers may not have satisfied rules of engagement designed to avoid the killing of innocents, Afghan and coalitions officials said.”

Celebrating its 60th birthday this year, NATO is looking peaked and significantly worse for wear. Aggressive and ineffectual, the organization shows signs of premature senility. Despite the smiles and reassuring rhetoric at its annual summits, its internal politics have become fractious to the point of dysfunction. Perhaps like any sexagenarian in this age of health-care crises and economic malaise, the transatlantic alliance is simply anxious about its future.

For weeks, the U.S. public followed the biggest offensive of the Afghanistan War against what it was told was a "city of 80,000 people" as well as the logistical hub of the Taliban in that part of Helmand. That idea was a central element in the overall impression built up in February that Marja was a major strategic objective, more important than other district centres in Helmand.

It turns out, however, that the picture of Marja presented by military officials and obediently reported by major news media is one of the clearest and most dramatic pieces of misinformation of the entire war, apparently aimed at hyping the offensive as a historic turning point in the conflict.

The Pentagon doesn't want Congress to debate Afghanistan. The Pentagon wants Congress to fork over $33 billion more to pay for the current military escalation, no questions asked, no restrictions imposed for a withdrawal timetable or an exit strategy.

Federal government documents on Afghan detainees suggest that Canadian officials intended some prisoners to be tortured in order to gather intelligence, according to a legal expert.

If the allegation is true, such actions would constitute a war crime, said University of Ottawa law professor Amir Attaran, who has been digging deep into the issue and told CBC News he has seen uncensored versions of government documents released last year.

As reported last fall in the Ottawa Citizen newspaper, Canadian military chaplins and some soldiers have been complaining as far back as 2006 that Afghan security forces have been sodomizing young boys on their base. These military whistle-blowers charge that the military brass has been ignoring or burying their complaints, fearing the bad publicity they could generate.

The paper reports that Canadian military police have also complained, as reported by Brig.-Gen. J.C. Collin, commander of Land Force Central Area, that they were being told "not to interfere in incidents in which Afghan forces were having sex with children."

Congressman Dennis Kucinich invoked a procedural rule to help protect Americans from endless war to compel members of Congress to debate and vote whether to continue US war in Afghanistan.

The war in Afghanistan is unlawful in Orwellian degree; tragic-comic in its violations of US war laws (useful analogy to well-understood laws for individual self-defense here). Although the laws of war are crystal-clear, complicit corporate media lies by omission and commission to explain what these laws have meant for 65 years and how they apply to unlawful US invasion of Afghanistan:

After seeing the gruesome aftermath of that rocket strike, survivors of the NATO attack told McClatchy Newspapers, women jumped from the second car and frantically waved their head scarves to try to stop the attack.

Congressman Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) today introduced H. Con Res. 248 a privileged resolution with 16 original cosponsors that will require the House of Representatives to debate whether to continue the war in Afghanistan.

The Pentagon confirmed late Tuesday that it is investigating the death of a 24-year-old Indiana Marine after he was shot to death in Afghanistan, allegedly by several US-paid private security contractors.

The contractors, according to a fellow Marine in Afghanistan who communicated with an investigative reporter in Chicago, were Afghanis who were found with "copious amounts of opium" and had been paid by the United States as guards.

Remember when Sarah Palin said that "the surge principles that have worked in Iraq need to be implemented in Afghanistan." Well...as Ms. Palin would say, many Afghans working for the Afghan security forces are now switching sides and are now defecting to the Taliban.

Among the worst Orwellian deceptions being exposed by the Pentagon’s Marjah offensive is the ludicrous notion that we’re fighting a war in Afghanistan in order to protect Afghan civilians. The recent U.S. Special Forces air strike in the Marjah area that killed 27 or more civilians, including four women and a child, is a prime example of a cognitive disconnect that has been endemic in U.S. military operations throughout our misnamed war on terrorism.

When NATO began its invasion of the Marjah farming region, the general consensus among analysts was that the offensive, the single largest operation since the 2001 invasion of Afghanistan against a relatively anonymous little town in the middle of nowhere, was mostly a “PR” invasion to sell the continued to an increasingly skeptical Western public.

But it is increasingly clear that wasn’t the whole story. Officials are now making it very plain that the invasion of Marjah was a “test” of a new strategy, that will be put into practice on a much larger scale with the invasion of Kandahar.

Christopher King argues that “a situation exists in which it may be in the interests of the United States to seek a ‘cold war’ situation with Russia and China as a pretext for defaulting on its external debt, attacking Iran, taking direct control of all Middle Eastern oilfields and effective control of Europe”.

I want you to look very closely at this picture and try and keep it in your minds eye. This was a perfectly healthy twenty two-year-old young man who in the service of his country got half of his head blown off. I think that’s important, I think that’s newsworthy. Let me tell you how newsworthy I think it is. I think that it’s more important than chocolate cake recipes and far more important than comic book reviews. It is more important than who fell and who's swell at the winter Olympic games.

President Obama should rethink the Afghanistan war for lots of reasons. The war isn't making us more secure. It's costing us billions (soon to be trillions) of dollars. It's costing us jobs. The war causes massive human suffering for both Afghans and Americans. We can now add another reason for the president to rethink the Afghanistan war: it's hurting his party's re-election efforts among a key constituency.

US-led forces were Saturday winding down one of their biggest offensives yet in Afghanistan, but an official said it was a mere prelude to a larger assault in the works on the Taliban bastion of Kandahar.

With the ongoing attack on Marjah, the US military began its first major assault on a Taliban controlled town in Afghanistan and simultaneously entered a new and expanded phase of the war. The resulting military victory was predictable but the side effects of civilian casualties and property destruction won't allow the coalition forces to win any local "hearts and minds," nor increase the acceptability of the Karzai regime. ''

Reiterating previous comments, several officials in the Obama Administration say that they will soon launch a massive offensive against Afghanistan’s Kandahar Province.

While the agricultural community of Marjah had some value to the Taliban, it was mostly by virtue of it being entirely out of the Karzai government’s control since the 2001 US invasion. Kandahar, on the other hand, is the Taliban’s “heartland,” and resistance is likely to be enormous.

Webmaster's Commentary:

The assault on Kandahar will result in a bloodbath, with US and NATO forces killing everything that moves.

“The morons in Washington are pushing the envelope of nuclear war. The insane drive for American hegemony threatens life on earth. The American people, by accepting the lies and deceptions of "their" government, are facilitating this outcome.”

“Some other agenda is being served that we are not being told.” – Paul Craig Roberts

Paul Craig Roberts is one of the most respected conservative voices in the nation. He is the former Assistant Secretary of the Treasury, and was Associate Editor of the Wall Street Journal. He has held numerous academic appointments, including the William E. Simon Chair, Center for Strategic and International Studies, Georgetown University, and Senior Research Fellow, Hoover Institution, Stanford University.

Blackwater set up a shell company to "defraud the government" by leading it to believe it wasn't contracting with the notorious security contractor, investigative journalist Jeremy Scahill says.

"In Afghanistan, they set up this shell company, Paravant, in collaboration with mammoth war giant Raytheon, which held the prime contract" for training Afghan security forces, Scahill told MSNBC's Rachel Maddow.

Employees of the CIA-connected private security corporation Blackwater diverted hundreds of weapons, including more than 500 AK-47 assault rifles, from a U.S. weapons bunker in Afghanistan intended to equip Afghan policemen, according to an investigation by the Senate Armed Services Committee. On at least one occasion, an individual claiming to work for the company evidently signed for a weapons shipment using the name of a “South Park” cartoon character. And Blackwater has yet to return hundreds of the guns to the military.

Webmaster's Commentary:

If I were South Park, I would sue.

PS If anyone from South Park is reading this I am still trying to get a "Sexual Harassment Panda" plush toy! :)

PPS If anyone from South Park is reading this I think I would make a great South Park character! :)

Pajhwok News Agency reports that on Tuesday, the Afghanistan senate deplored the foreign airstrikes that killed 21 innocent civilians in the province of Daikundi on Sunday, and demanded that NATO avoid any repetition of this sort of error.

But some senators went farther, demanding that NATO or US military men responsible for the deaths be executed. Senator Hamidullah Tokhi of Uuzgan complained to Pajhwok that the foreign forces had killed civilians in such incidents time and again, and kept apologizing but then repeating the fatal mistake: "Anyone killing an ordinary Afghan should be executed in public."

A night-time raid in eastern Afghanistan in which eight schoolboys from one family were killed was carried out on the basis of faulty intelligence and should never have been authorised, a Times investigation has found.

Ten children and teenagers died when troops stormed a remote mountain compound near the border with Pakistan in December.

At the time, Nato claimed that the assault force was targeting a “known insurgent group responsible for a series of violent attacks”. Officials said that the victims were involved in making and smuggling improvised explosive devices. But Western sources close to the case now agree that the victims were all aged 12 to 18 and were not involved in insurgent activity.

In a move that will further cement his long-term hold on power, Afghan President Hamid Karzai issued a decree earlier this month giving him unilateral control over appointing the entire Electoral Complaints Commission, eliminating all UN oversight over future elections.

“The demilitarization of Europe — where large swaths of the general public and political class are averse to military force and the risks that go with it — has gone from a blessing in the 20th century to an impediment to achieving real security and lasting peace in the 21st,” he told NATO officers and officials in a speech at the National Defense University, the Defense Department-financed graduate school for military officers and diplomats.

A perception of European weakness, he warned, could provide a “temptation to miscalculation and aggression” by hostile powers.

Webmaster's Commentary:

Memo to Sec Def Gates: unlike in the US, governments of European countries, on occasion, do need to listen to their constituents.

And the constituents of those governmental leaders do not want to see their members of their families serving in the military fighting, getting maimed, and killed for the sake of private oil and drug profits, which were the outcomes desired for the US/NATO invasion and occupation of Afghanistan.

The control of the burgeoning drug trade and its geographical distribution, has been accomplished; "pacification" of the Afghan people, to the point of being able to install the pipelines to control Eurasian oil, has not, which is why we are still in this sordid military mess in Afghanistan 8 years on.

Robert Greenwald, the creator of Brave New Films, testified to the House Appropriations Committee, Subcommittee on Defense about war profiteering. He planned to show a 4-minute excerpt from his film, “Iraq for Sale,” as a more powerful communication than his mere speaking but was blocked by a majority vote of those in favor of the Iraq war.

The powerful and revealing 4-minute video is below.

Following is a 3-minute CBS News story of then Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld admitting the Pentagon “lost” $2.3 trillion dollars:
That’s $23,000 for every US household,
or embezzling $1,000,000 from a military project 2,300,000 times,
or embezzling a million dollars a day for 6,300 years,

U.S. Special Operations Forces ordered an airstrike that killed at least 27 civilians in southern Afghanistan and the soldiers may not have satisfied rules of engagement designed to avoid the killing of innocents, Afghan and coalition officials said Monday.

Webmaster's Commentary:

The lives and safety of the Afghan people are totally irrelevant to the current military strategy, no matter how cosmetic the language used here about "protecting the Afghan people" is continually repeated, as didGeneral Mc Chrystal said in his televised address.

The desired outcome of "pacifying" the Afghan people until pipelines can be installed here with which to control Eurasian oil for private profit, is still absolutely no where in sight, eight years on.

So, the killing of women, kids, the medically infirm, non-combatants and the elderly will continue to grind on, unabated, until that outcome has been achieved, which may well be never.

A bomb strapped to a bicycle exploded near a busy bus terminal in Afghanistan, killing eight people Tuesday as the death toll of US troops in the Afghan war surpassed the grim milestone of 1,000.

McChrystal went on television to apologise for a mistaken NATO air strike on Sunday that killed 27 civilians.

In the video he expresses "extreme sadness" and says foreign forces are in Afghanistan "to protect the Afghan people".

Webmaster's Commentary:

Memo to US General Stanley McChrystal: you understand, the Afghan people understand, and the world understands that the statement about foreign troops being in Afghanistan "to protect the Afghan people" is a complete, utter, and abominably transparent lie.

The US and NATO are in Afghanistan for two reasons, and two reasons only.

The are:

1. to "pacify" the Afghan population to the degree necessary to install the pipelines with which to to control Eurasian oil for private profit, and

2. To control production and the flow of drugs from which so many profit so handsomely.

The second outcome seems to have been well accomplished, to the point where the Russian government was complaining stridently last year about cheap heroin flooding the market in their country, destroying the lives of their kids (when you control the drugs, you control where the drugs wind up).

Glenn Greenwald of Salon uncovers a brutal mindfuck of gruesome pro-civilian bombing positive influence in the pages of the New York Times. A defence corporation employee demands the US blow more money terror bombing the civilian populace of Afghanistan.

The Afghan president, Hamid Karzai, has unilaterally taken control of the country's top electoral watchdog, provoking outrage from western diplomats, the Guardian has learnt.

The Electoral Complaints Commission (ECC), which forced Karzai into a runoff election after it disqualified nearly 1m fraudulent votes in last year's presidential election, previously included three foreign experts named by the UN.

However, according to a new presidential decree published today, Karzai will have the exclusive power to appoint all five panel members.

US and NATO forces are all set to roll out an "intensive 18-month" ground campaign in Afghanistan to stamp out Taliban and al-Qaeda militants, top US generals have said warning the insurgents that Marjah offensive was just the start.

Webmaster's Commentary:

The US has been in Afghanistan longer than all of WW2. The US has been in Afghanistan as long as the USSR. Last week's "intensive operation" was supposed to end Wednesday with the capture of the Taliban stronghold and Friday they announced it will be another month before they are done.

And now it is 18 months.

You know, continuing to bash your own head with a two by four doesn't prove you are brave, only persistent to the point of stupidity.

Senior US officials, who spoke to various media outlets on the condition that they are not identified, said the Americans were not satisfied with the interrogation and wanted to take charge.

Interior Minister Rehman Malik said on Friday that once Pakistani agencies completed their investigation, Mullah Baradar could be handed over to his country of origin, which is Afghanistan, but not to the US.

Webmaster's Commentary:

By the time Baradar is "interrogated" by the CIA, it will be a miracle if he's still alive.

Baradar is the one guy who might have been able to create some degree of reconciliation between the Karzai government and the Taliban.

It is pretty obvious the US is going to do its best to prevent that from happening.

t was so uplifting to see the Government of the Netherlands make a decision to pull out of Afghanistan. This is the first major NATO partner to make such a decision and hopefully this will paint a very clear picture to the other EU members that this war has nothing to do with democracy or terrorism.

The people have a last seen what hides behind this unnecessary war and realize that its basis was formed on a pack of lies. We again see that the true reason for going to war was greed for economic growth and to get their hands on the oil and gas reserves in the Middle East Region.

On Thursday the New York Times made an astonishing editorial choice, for which its editors owe the public an explanation: it published an op-ed by an obscure and poorly identified author attacking General Stanley McChrystal for his directive last July that air strikes in Afghanistan be authorized only under "very limited and prescribed conditions." The op-ed denounced an "overemphasis on civilian protection" and charged that "air support to American and Afghan forces has been all but grounded by concerns about civilian casualties."

While this was the first time Pakistan had acted against the Taliban leadership, Afghans involved in western-backed attempts to start talks with the Taliban to end the war were furious, warning that the arrest might have ruined chances of negotiations.

“It’s a spectacular own goal [for the US],” said one official. “They want to wreck talks,” said a close aide to Afghanistan’s president, Hamid Karzai.

“Mullah Baradar was independently in contact with the Afghan government to find a way for reconciliation and the Pakistanis knew that from their secret agents.”

Webmaster's Commentary:

Terrific: what happens to the one guy who could possibly have pulled off some degree of reconciliation with the Taliban?

He gets arrested.

So, the war keeps grinding on, day after horrendous day, not only for US and NATO troops, but for terrified Afghani non-combatants who fear for their lives every day.

Christopher King expresses the hope that the fall of the Dutch government over participation in the US-led aggression in Afghanistan could be the start of a trend that will see Europe regain its independence from the USA.

"I don’t think this district is strategically very important for bringing peace and security to the whole country," she told me. "The Taliban are very scattered, it’s not an organized war. It’s not going to work with such a massive military operation."

Out on the streets of Kabul, there is, at best, cautious optimism. Jaweed, a university student, told me he hopes the Taliban are defeated, but worries about what will happen when the fighting stops. "I am not one hundred percent sure about this offensive, because our security forces aren’t up to defending the country properly."

His concern is that, despite the coalition’s pledge to hold on to Marjah, the Taliban will simply re-emerge when attention turns elsewhere.

Anyone aspiring to write or edit textbooks for the Department of Education should study U.S. news-wire reports. Rarely will you see imperial aggression being so expertly spun into peaceful liberation within the context of U.S. exceptionalism.

Take for example a February 13, Associated Press report, "US troops fight, then work to win hearts and minds," where the editor mourns the mission:

[I]n the revised U.S. war strategy, the fight against the insurgents is as important as winning the allegiance and confidence of Afghan citizens. For American soldiers here, their days are often a mix of winning hearts and minds and fighting a determined enemy.

Since the assault was always intended to be as much a publicity stunt as serving any military objective, Barack Obama and Gordon Brown will certainly be pleased at how the media has snapped into line and acted as stenographers for Nato press releases.

The truth is, most of the few hundred Taliban fighters in Marjah vanished well before the much touted offensive began, not being stupid enough to face up to 15,000 of the most heavily armed troops on the planet.

Much of what we've seen on the TV screens looks like random firing into empty space to give the cameras footage for the evening news bulletins.

A fresh dispatch from the imperial satrapy of Bactria brings word that the Pentagon has ended the eyeblink-brief "suspension" of one of its super-duper missile systems following the "unfortunate" slaughter of 12 civilians, including five children, in the opening hours of the all-out media blitz -- sorry, the "largest military operation of the Afghan war" -- now being inflicted on the city of Marja.

US-led occupation troops waging a huge offensive against the Taliban in southern Afghanistan risked becoming bogged down Tuesday, running into pockets of resistance as the nightmare of the homemade bombs is chasing the occupation troops.

US and Afghan military officials said remote-controlled bombs were hampering the progress of the assault on Marjah in the Nad Ali district of the southern province of Helmand.

Some Taliban leaders are initiating third-party talks that could lay the groundwork for progress between the U.S. and Afghan governments and the Taliban insurgents. In the video below, Charles Sennott of international news site GlobalPost.com reports on how moderate Taliban leaders are engaged in shuttle negotiations, and have been in contact with Mullah Mohammad Omar, the spiritual leader of the Taliban.

The Afghan authorities confirmed on Tuesday reports that the Taliban’s second-in-command, Mullah Baradar, has been arrested in Pakistan. But while the West considers the capture of such a ‘big fish’ a strategic victory, our correspondent points out that he was also the key to a possible diplomatic solution to the conflict.

Obama needs good news, and there is no doubt that the story of the capture of a top commander would be a blow to the morale of the Afghani freedom fighters, so the potential for a mis-identification based on wishful thinking cannot be ignored.

I have no doubt that with enough waterboarding, this man will admit to being Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, or even Jack The Ripper.

US forces continue to press forward in the Marjah region of Afghanistan’s Helmand Province, put are said to be struggling mightily with home-made bombs and sniper fire, and were able to advance only 500 yards yesterday.

Webmaster's Commentary:

During yesterday's radio show, CNN was proclaiming how the Taliban was being driven from their stronghold, victory was imminent, and military operations in Marjah would be over in another 2 days.

Of course, the reason for such reckless predictions is that Obama needs a victory in one of the wars before he thinks he can start a new war with Iran and not have the American people storm the White House with tar, feathers, and a rope.

The US has been in Afghanistan for 8 years, two years longer than all of WW2, just as long as the USSR and if this escalation fails to achieve a decisive victory, the public perception that this is just another Vietnam and that the US Government were fools to fall into the same trap that the USSR did, will only grow.

Remember, the principle of Odious Debt is that We The People are NOT obligated to repay the money borrowed for any of these wars.

US Marines and Afghan troops were making slow progress as they came under attack from snipers on the third day of a major offensive to seize the Taleban’s stronghold in southern Afghanistan.

Multiple firefights broke out in different areas in and around Marjah, the last militant stronghold in the country’s most violent province, Helmand. The US troops leading Operation Moshtarak — “Togetherness” — advanced only 500 yards today. Marine units twice tried to capture the town’s central bazaar, only to be pushed back.

The former US Vice President Dick Cheney, assuming a rare posture, has backed President Barack Obama praising his plan for the US war in Afghanistan.

“I’m a complete supporter of what they are doing in Afghanistan. I think the president made the right decision to send troops in. I’m not a critic, in terms of how they’re dealing with that situation,” Cheney told the prominent weekly news program.

The Battle of Marjah was supposed to be the centerpiece of the Obama escalation, showcasing NATO’s firepower against the farming community while emphasizing strategic changes designed to limit civilian casualties.

This has failed on both fronts, with troops encountering heavy resistance and making slow progress in occupying the town, and even more importantly an embarrasingly high profile mishap involving US forces.

Actually, nobody has been forced from anything. In a repeat of the same strategy that wore out the Soviets, the Taliban simply leave their bases and merge in with he general population, leaving the surge to waste time and money shelling empty buildings and tripping overt the booby traps. The US will declare victory and leave and the Taliban will repair their bases and the war will go on.

Two U.S. rockets slammed into a home Sunday outside the southern Taliban stronghold of Marjah, killing 12 civilians after Afghanistan's president appealed to NATO to take care in its campaign to seize the town.

Webmaster's Commentary:

"Those guys over there; the ones we wanted to hit with the rockets? They are the terrorists, remember? We're the good guys. Okay? Good guys here, terrorists over there, bloody bits blown up by our rockets are 'collateral damage'. Oh yes, they only hate us for our freedoms." -- Official White Horse Souse

In the name of “assisting Afghanistan’s government to assert its authority in central Helmand”, thousands of US-led occupation troops launched a major offensive against Taliban before dawn on Saturday, the first since US President Barack Obama ordered more troops to Afghanistan, NATO said.

In ancient Greece, the Olympics festival were a sacred time of truce. For the duration of the games, the conflicts between cities such as Sparta and Athens were resolved within the Stadiums, not on the battlefields. When the founder of the modern Olympics, Pierre De Coubertin, organized the 1896 Olympics in Athens he had the very same intention.

Pierre De Coubertin re-originated the idea that while the Olympics can instill a sense of national pride, the games’ goal must be to promote cooperation between the world’s nations and promote peace. Well, apparently the Obama administration, and more specifically General McChrystal- the commander in Afghanistan- forgot to read Pierre De Coubertin’s memo.

"If [NATO forces] don't avoid large scale civilian casualties, given the rhetoric about protecting the population, then no matter how many Taliban are routed, the Marjah mission should be considered a failure," said an analyst with the International Crisis Group.

Today, AFP reported, military helicopters dropped leaflets over Marjah as radio broadcasts "warned residents not to shelter Taliban ahead of a massive assault." Doesn't this suggest that the invading US forces may regard any civilian alleged to be "sheltering Taliban" as a legitimate target, including women and children?

Webmaster's Commentary:

This offensive is guaranteed to accomplish two outcomes; to kill a lot of innocent non-combatants, and radicalize those left standing into the waiting arms of the Taliban.

Conquest is thought necessary by nation-states like Rome, forgetting that an imperially ambitious nation substitutes conquest for real productivity. Instead of employing persons, Rome seized their farms and sent them off on wars of aggression and conquest. Obvious examples are Dacia and Gaul both of which Rome invaded for 'gold'. More recently, George W. Bush attacked and invaded Iraq for its oil. Little has changed but names and commodities. If you are still inclined to believe the Bushco cover story, please tell me how many bona fide terrorists were captured by Bush and cite a scintilla of evidence that they were anything but Iraqis defending their nation, their homes and families, against an aggressor, a thief, a war criminal.

The war in Afghanistan has lasted more than 8 years, more than two years longer than WW2. We have been in Afghanistan for about the same time the USSR was, with no end in sight other than that our economy is bankrupt (as happened to the USSR).

That the news is touting a new intense surge in "pacification" (in Tacitus' sense of the word) proves that little real military success has occurred in the last 8 years. 700 military camps spread across Afghanistan are still unable to control the place.

The last military commander to successfully conquer and hang onto Afghanistan was Alexander the Great and he only kept it three years. Afghanistan is called the graveyard of empires and our empire is trapped in it like a dying mammoth sinking into the La Brea tar pits.

Presidents Day weekend includes honoring the birthday of Abraham Lincoln for most Americans. He is considered among the top writers in our world’s history for eloquent and powerful precision. He is revered by Republicans as the father of their political Party. His commitment to the nation “of the people, by the people, for the people” is revered by all.

Thousands of US Marines and Army troops have moved into position on the outskirts of Marjah, a town in central Helmand province, identified publicly by the Pentagon as the first major target of the offensive authorized by President Barack Obama.

The town is the largest population center under Taliban control and has been dubbed a "Taliban stronghold" in the US media in order to excuse in advance what are likely to be massive civilian casualties. Press reports citing military sources claim that up to 1,000 "militants" are making a stand in Marjah, lacing the roads and fields with land mines and improvised explosive devices (IEDs).

Webmaster's Commentary:

This has been so hyped by the corporate media that if feels as if we're going to be going back to the "body count" reporting of the Viet Nam era.

You have to wonder how many women, kids, the medically infirm, and the elderly will be gunned down in this impending US/NATO "victory".

And I would almost bet one worthless US cent on the following; because this battle has been so thoroughly announced in Afghanistan, many of the Taliban have already fled, to pick up their weapons another day.

And the second relatively safe bet?!? That this attack will radicalize those left standing even further into the orbit of the Taliban.

Nearly a decade after the Bush administration launched its invasion of Afghanistan, TomDispatch offers the first actual count of American, NATO, and other coalition bases there, as well as facilities used by the Afghan security forces. Such bases range from relatively small sites like Shinwar to mega-bases that resemble small American towns. Today, according to official sources, approximately 700 bases of every size dot the Afghan countryside, and more, like the one in Shinwar, are under construction or soon will be as part of a base-building boom that began last year.

Okay, let’s put these two things together. Nicholson is telegraphing he’s letting the air strikes off the chain and that he intends to use rapid, furious attacks in Marja, and somehow that is supposed to lead to reduced civilian casualties. Well, that would be great if we didn’t already know that the single greatest cause of U.S.-caused civilian casualties was airstrikes in support of troops involved in intense firefights.

Webmaster's Commentary:

Air strikes in densely populated Afghani civilian areas guarantee two things, and two things only: a lot of dead and maimed non-combatants, and the radicalizing of those left standing even further against the Karzai government, and the US/NATO occupation.

Hundreds of civilians have already fled Marjah, and the Afghan government insists it has made preparations to feed up to 6,000 displaced families. But with the Helmand region containing over 100,000 civilians, the largest NATO offensive since the 2001 invasion could easily overwhelm this capacity.

This has led NATO and the Afghan government to urge Marjah’s civilian populace to “stay put” while the troops mass along the outskirts of their region. They insist civilians “will not be harmed,” but with an enormous number of foreign troops primed for action and the Taliban planting explosives anywhere and everywhere, a significant civilian toll seems inevitable.

Webmaster's Commentary:

These people know precisely what's coming, and for NATO and the Afghan government to make such a statement is a consummate insult to their intelligence.

One would have thought the public had heard enough of history being rewritten to suit politicians when Tony Blair appeared at the Iraq Inquiry and, among other things, pushed the old, discredited conflation of Al Qaeda, 9/11 and Iraq. Presumably he still thinks that if he utters an untruth often enough people will believe him.

But now, the UK Foreign Secretary David Miliband is rewriting the history of Britain’s involvement in Afghanistan, both in the media and at public meetings. On 5 February he appeared at a meeting in Taunton, Somerset, UK, there to answer the public’s questions on “Why we are in Afghanistan”.

Warning: Pictures that will make you ashamed to be an American. (Your tax dollars at work)

Although this may be an unpopular statement - in light of the limelight and fawning over our "Special" forces - a body count is a superannuated and disgusting measure of "success" to any thinker.

When I see images like those in this blog post - it is very very very very very hard for me to sympathize with military families or "contactors" families crying about their breadwinners having to take a dirt nap.

In his February Vanity Fair hitpiece, Christopher Hitchens argues that the post-9/11 world has driven Gore Vidal ‘Loco’ – the signs, he says, were always there, but 9/11 and events thereafter ‘accentuated a crackpot strain that gradually asserted itself as dominant.’

Hitchens begins his missive with Gore’s take on 9/11 itself, in which he ‘insinuated or asserted that the administration had known in advance of the attacks on New York and Washington and was seeking a pretext to build a long-desired pipeline across Afghanistan.’

Afghanistan's Taliban rejected President Hamid Karzai's latest attempt to reach out to them as "futile" and "farcical" on Sunday, but said they were open to talks to achieve their goal of an Islamic state.

"This is not the first time that the Kabul regime and the invading countries want to throw dust into the eyes of the public of the world by announcing reconciliation in words and, in practice, make preparation for war," said a statement posted in English on the Afghan Taliban's website, alemarah.info.

Webmaster's Commentary:

The Taliban are smart enough to recognize they don't have to "reconcile" with Karzai's government; all they have to do is to wait.

The Karzai government, so befouled with its own corruption, will ultimately collapse, and the US will have its "Saigon moment" and leave.

At that point, the US will, again, have to negotiate with whatever government is left standing in Kabul for rights to the oil pipelines.

Please remember: as late as August of 2001, the Bush administration was negotiating for rights to the pipelines with the Taliban government, but thought the price demanded was "too high".

Apparently, the Bush administration thought that a war, and the cost in blood of our brave military, and in money, was somehow "cheaper" than negotiations in the long-run.

It has not been cheaper for those young men and women who have died, or been maimed for life, in the pursuit of private profits for the oil companies.

It has not been "cheaper" for the families and friends who mourn them, or - for those still alive and badly injured - are desperately seeking help from a Veterans Administration system which routinely ignores them, makes them wait, and provides substandard care.

Of course, these people are completely expendable to the powers that be in Washington..and the corporations which profit so handsomely from war.

I don't care what agency they are with, what country they are from, or what traitorous pen stroke our bogus appointed rulers create in the way of Executive Orders, ANYONE that tries to disarm law abiding Americans should be SHOT ON SIGHT. And if you don't, if you allow them to takes us out one at a time while hiding in the basement instead of attacking the attackers, you deserve the chains they have waiting.

Moscow: There are around two million drug abusers in Russia who depend on opiates and another three million take cannabis, hashish and synthetic drugs, according to the Russian Federal Drugs Control Service.

Of them 90 percent take Afghanistan's drugs, mainly heroin.

"It is necessary to engage the UNSC and to classify the production of drugs in Afghanistan, which is abnormal by its scale, as a global threat to peace and security," Ivanov said, adding this evil should be "equated to terrorism by its menacing potential”.

Webmaster's Commentary:

When specific groups control the drug trade, they also control where the drugs wind up.

It's interesting to note that under the watch of the Taliban, the cultivation of the opium poppy was almost completely eradicated.

Suddenly, after the invasion and occupation of Afghanistan, the cultivation and production of opium poppies soared.

To say that there cannot possibly be a connection between the occupation and soaring heroin production here is preposterous.

And for anyone screaming, "this can't be so!", please remember: elements of the US government has a sordid reputation for involvement in the drug trade, as happened in the "golden triangle" area of southeast Asia during the Viet Nam war, and with Iran Contra.

These raids are being carried out in advance of what is anticipated to be a major US offensive in the Marjah region of Helmand province, a Taliban stronghold where some 10,000 Marines have been deployed. The offensive is expected as early as the end of this week.

Webmaster's Commentary:

Ignorance should be painful.

You cannot win what is essentially a ground war from the air.

You can, however, manage to kill a lot of innocent people, and radicalize those left standing into the waiting arms of the insurgents.

On the surface, it would seem unlikely that Afghan President Hamid Karzai, who presides over a politically feeble government and is highly dependent on the U.S. military presence and economic assistance, would defy the United States on the issue of peace negotiations with the leadership of the Taliban insurgency.

But a long-simmering conflict between Karzai and key officials of the Barack Obama administration over that issue came to a head at last week’s London Conference, when the Afghan president refused to heed U.S. signals to back off his proposal to invite the Taliban leaders to participate in a nationwide peace conference.

Webmaster's Commentary:

With all his faults and corruption, Karzai realizes that the only way any true stability is going to be achieved in Afghanistan is by including the Taliban into the government, rather than marginalizing and demonizing them.

U.S. and NATO officials are offering bribes drawn from a billion-dollar “Peace and Reintegration Trust Fund” to get Taliban fighters to defect. Taliban leaders have condemned the buyout strategy as a “trick” and warn that offers of reconciliation will be futile unless all foreign troops leave Afghanistan.

Last month 44 US and coalition troops were killed in Afghanistan—the bloodiest month of fighting recorded in the country’s winter season since the 2001 invasion. In previous years, the freezing temperatures and snowy conditions have seen a lull in the conflict between the US and NATO led International Security Assistance Force and anti-occupation guerrillas.

On a base near Marjah, a Taliban stronghold in Helmand province, Marines are grieving the deaths of a sergeant and corporal killed by the remote-controlled bombs that have become the scourge of the long-running conflict.

Commanders try to keep the men's rage in check, aware that winning over an Afghan public wary of the foreign military presence and furious about civilian casualties is as important as battlefield success.
"It causes a lot of frustration. My men want revenge - that is only natural," says First Lieutenant Aaron MacLean, 2nd Platoon commander of the 1st Battalion, 6th Regiment Charlie company.

A hunger for revenge is palpable among US Marines as casualties grow on the frontline of the battle against the Taliban in southern Afghanistan. 'My men want revenge - that is only natural,' says First Lieutenant Aaron MacLean.

A Taliban suicide squad seized a hotel in Helmand on Friday, triggering gun battles with security forces in the capital of the British-garrisoned province.

Just a day after London's summit on Afghanistan, gunmen wearing suicide vests occupied the unfinished hotel yards from the governors' offices and around two miles from the headquarters of British military and aid efforts in Afghanistan.

Sometime in the last few years, Pashtun villagers in Afghanistan’s rugged heartland began to lose faith in the American project. Many of them can point to the precise moment of this transformation, and it usually took place in the dead of the night, when most of the country was fast asleep. In the secretive U.S. detentions process, suspects are usually nabbed in the darkness and then sent to one of a number of detention areas on military bases, often on the slightest suspicion and without the knowledge of their families.

If history has taught us anything, it is that we need to beware those populist politicians who claim to be men of peace by nature but men of war by necessity. The most violent wars this planet has ever seen, the most brutal regimes that have ever sought to repress their own citizens, the most genocidal schemes have always been nurtured under the leadership of politicians who offer war, violence and domination as a way of achieving peace.

He adds, "We have not yet conducted a comprehensive, interdisciplinary analysis of all our strategic options. Nor have we brought all the real-world variables to bear in testing the proposed counterinsurgency plan. …

"This strategic re-examination could either include or lead to high-level U.S. talks with the Afghans, the Pakistanis, the Saudis and other important regional players — including possibly Iran."

Extraordinary. Here is the U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan bemoaning the fact that, as the President approaches his decision on a large troop increase, there has still been no comprehensive analysis of the wider issues that remain "unaddressed" in McChrystal’s proposal.

None of this happened in the southern badlands of Afghanistan where the Taliban are exacting a seemingly relentless death toll from mostly US and UK forces, but in Bala Murghab, in Badghis province in the far north-west.

A backwater in the war in Afghanistan, nine miles south of the border of Turkmenistan, it has been neglected for years by both Nato and the Afghan government. But it is places like Bala Murghab, in a supposedly more secure corner of the country, that expose the immense difficulties the country has ahead of it in building self-reliant ­security forces and persuading a new breed of increasingly competent Taliban fighters to lay down their arms.

Webmaster's Commentary:

We are in Afghanistan to achieve two outcomes, and two outcomes only; to install oil pipelines, with which to control Eurasian oil, and the control over the drug crops, from which so many profit so handsomely.

The Taliban statement condemned the measure as a “trick” designed to divide the force, and said that offers of reconciliation were futile without a withdrawal of foreign troops. The Taliban’s suspicions are actually in keeping with some official comments from British and American officials, who have said that the measure is indeed about “weakening” the Taliban’s leadership by bribing off its support. Others however maintain the deal is about getting the Taliban on board to rebuild the war torn nation.

Webmaster's Commentary:

The Taliban are many things, but they are not stupid.

They understand that the reason this scheme is being touted at all is that the US and NATO are losing, bigtime, in Afghanistan.

Pakistan has revived an eight-country grouping to counter US pressure for giving India a greater role in war-torn Afghanistan's
reconstruction, according to a media report on Tuesday.

Following an initiative spearheaded by Islamabad, Afghanistan's neighbours met in Turkey seeking a "single voice" before a London conference to set a timetable for handing security over to Afghans and find ways to negotiate peace with the Taliban.

"The aim of the meeting is to find a single voice in the region to take to the London conference," said a western diplomat attending the gathering in Istanbul on Tuesday. "The aim is to help Afghanistan stand on its own feet in the medium and long-term."

Webmaster's Commentary:

Until the corruption in government is a thing of the past in Afghanistan, there is no clear way to move this agenda forward.

Unfortunately, right now, all the aid the West may pledge will simply go into the pockets of governmental officials, without ever reaching the people it was intended to help.

Secretary of Defense Robert Gates has been briefed by the Pakistani Military High Command that they are being overwhelmed by highly trained and extremely well armed militants in the border regions and terrorists operating across the country. We have been told by the highest sources that Blackwater/Xe and other US based mercenary groups have been actively attacking police, military and intelligence organizations in Pakistan as part of operations under employment of the Government of India and their allies in Afghanistan, the drug lords, whose followers make up the key components of the Afghan army.

The United States is repeating the mistakes that the Soviet Union
disastrous near decade-long war there harbours deep lessons for Western forces.

"It is now (nearly) nine years since the coalition invaded Afghanistan and nothing has changed," said retired Lieutenant General Ruslan Aushev, 55, who served five years in Afghanistan during the Soviet occupation there from 1979-1989.

Webmaster's Commentary:

Those who do not learn the lessons of history are doomed to repeat them.

The NATO commander in Afghanistan said his troop surge could lead to a negotiated peace with the Taliban, in an interview published on Monday ahead of a major conference this week on the war.

US General Stanley McChrystal also told the Financial Times he hopes his allies will leave Thursday's meeting in London with a "renewed commitment" to the increasingly bloody conflict.

Webmaster's Commentary:

Is General Mc Chrystal barking mad?!?

This "surge" is not going to bring the Taliban to the table. They will not have to come to any table, because the US and NATO troops are losing, and will continue to lose. The Taliban has set up parallel governmental entities, and those entities are functioning, unlike those of the Karzai government.

Even with the surge of troops and contract mercenaries, we do not, nor have we ever had enough boots on the ground to win a successful ground ground campaign.

The continued aerial assaults guarantee two things, and two things only.

These are: 1. the killing of one heck of a lot of innocent civilians, and 2. the radicalizing of those left standing even further against the US, NATO, and the Karzai government, which Afghanis see as the US's and NATO's appointed puppet.

The level of corruption in the Karzai regime is legend. Payoffs of governmental officials is the only way to get something done. Opium production has soared after the US/NATO invasion and occupation.

And,as reported here yesterday:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/jan/24/afghanistan-elections

They have even had to postpone their parliamentary election after the farce last year, coupled with alleged "lack of funds" to hold them.

All the Taliban has to do is continue their war of attrition. At the end of the day, for US and NATO forces, their will be a "Saigon Moment", just as there was for the old Soviet Union.

At that point, the US and NATO will need to negotiate with whatever government is left standing for the rights to the pipeline routes, which has been the unachieved objective of this 8 years - and counting - military misadventure.

"It is now (nearly) nine years since the coalition invaded Afghanistan and nothing has changed," said retired Lieutenant General Ruslan Aushev, 55, who served five years in Afghanistan during the Soviet occupation there from 1979-1989.

However, Aushev, who was made a Hero of the Soviet Union after being wounded on his third Afghan deployment, admitted that Nato and US troops face a fiercer enemy today than did Soviet troops.

Truthdig
War Is Sin
Posted on Jun 1, 2009
By Chris Hedges
The crisis faced by combat veterans returning from war is not simply a profound struggle with trauma and alienation. It is often, for those who can slice through the suffering to self-awareness, an existential crisis. War exposes the lies we tell ourselves about ourselves. It rips open the hypocrisy of our religions and secular institutions. Those who return from war have learned something which is often incomprehensible to those who have stayed home. We are not a virtuous nation. God and fate have not blessed us above others. Victory is not assured. War is neither glorious nor noble. And we carry within us the capacity for evil we ascribe to those we fight.